Akimel O'odham (Pima)
Storage Basket
Akimel O'odham (Pima), 1900-1932
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Akimel O'odham (Pima)
Storage Basket
Akimel O'odham (Pima), 1900-1932
Physical Qualities
Tule stem, willow, devil's claw, 15 1/2 × 12 1/2 in (top). (39.4 × 31.8 cm.)
Credit Line
Bequest of Florence Reese Winslow
Object Number
1953.220.B.171
Olla-shaped storage baskets were relatively rare before 1920. Between 1920 and 1940 this form became popular with White buyers. Older baskets for storing grain were made of bundles of wheat straw sewn together with strips of mesquite or willow bark. Their shape was more globular than the olla, and they ranged in size from 100-400 gallons. They were so large that the basket-maker found it easier to work on them from the inside (photo).
Field photo:
Putnam and Valentine, c. 1900, in A. H. Whiteford, Southwestern Indian Baskets; Their History and Their Makers, 1988
The Baltimore Museum of Art by bequest, 1953; Florence Reese Winslow, Baraboo, WI.
Katzenberg, D. S. "And eagles sweep across the sky": Indian textiles of the North American West. Baltimore: Baltimore Museum of Art, 1977, no. 275, p. 142, ill.
